In this latest podcast we attempt to shed some light on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s latest Network North proposal.
This new package of rail and road improvements was outlined at the recent Conservative Party Conference and trumpeted as a better value alternative to the simultaneously cancelled northern section of the HS2 project which had been scheduled to link Birmingham with Manchester.
We have read many words over the last couple of weeks explaining why halting an over budget, over inflated HS2 extension project was the difficult but brave political decision.
Yet we have also heard and read a huge amount about why cancelling such a large and strategically significant national infrastructure project will terminally undermine efforts to level up the national economy and destroy market confidence in the UK’s ability to plan major projects.
But the decision has been made. And the Department for Transport has rushed out its press releases, maps and plans to explain the detail around precisely what this new Network North is all about. And to attempt to explain the timescales over which any of it will actually be delivered.
It warrants deeper explanation. It is therefore my pleasure to welcome Alasdair Reisner, chief executive, Civil Engineering Contractors Association. Of course, while he certainly represents many of the businesses impacted by the HS2 cancellation, he also represent those likely to gain from this new plan – so I hope knows more than most about the reality of what’s been plucked from the Prime Minister’s conference hat.
